Team Refuses To Be Tackling Dummies

March 05, 1989|By Paul Weingarten, Chicago Tribune.

PRAIRIE VIEW, TEX. — Herman Moore, a 6-foot-4-inch, 265-pound offensive lineman for the Prairie View A&M University Panthers, mumbled an apology for the disheveled condition of his dorm room and quickly gathered up the Business Week and Fortune magazines fanned out on a footlocker.

``We`ve had this stigma that we`re big dummies,`` said Moore, a senior and a marketing major with a 2.8 grade point average. ``But now the students don`t think of us that way, at least not at Prairie View. They`re surprised that football players are hollering about academics.``

It has gone beyond hollering. Last month the team went on strike, demanding that head coach Haney Catchings be fired because he was neglecting their education.

``We want a coach who cares about us academically,`` said Moore, one of the strike leaders.

The monthlong strike has drawn national attention to this small institution 45 miles northwest of Houston, and has set it in sharp contrast to many other Texas universities where football often comes first and academics second.

The players charged that Catchings routinely held six-hour practice sessions that left little time for study. They contend he threatened to withhold players` financial aid if they performed poorly on the field, and that he instituted ``inhumane`` and ``dangerous`` practice drills that caused several injuries.

The players also complained that they didn`t receive their school books-part of their financial aid packages-until midway through the fall

semester, and that Catchings, though not directly responsible, did nothing to help them.

As a result, the players said, more than half of the 55 team members achieved a grade point average of less than 2.0 last semester, putting them on academic probation and jeopardizing their college careers. If they don`t improve their grades this semester, they may be granted one more semester to do so before they are automatically suspended, according to school officials. ``He made us feel like we were dummies,`` said Moore. ``The coach said,

`If you get books, you`re not going to study anyway, and it makes you forget what you`re here for.` He said, `Football is No. 1, and education is No. 2` ``

The players voted 54 to 1 early last month to strike. If Catchings isn`t fired, they have vowed to boycott spring training, set to begin later this month. The team, which competes in the Southwestern Athletic Conference, NCAA Division I-AA, had a 5-5 record last year, its best since 1976.

University president Percy Pierre ordered an internal investigation of the charges. The results of that investigation are to be announced early next week. Catchings denies the accusations but says he won`t comment further until after the report is released.

Other school officials, however, have already disputed the accuracy of some of the players` claims. Athletic director Brutus Jackson, for instance, said 20 football players-fewer than half the team-were placed on academic probation this semester, and most were freshmen. Jackson recently was

``temporarily reassigned`` until after the internal investigation.

University officials fear the strike has already tarnished Prairie View, the oldest black college in Texas and a football power in the 1950s and `60s- before black players were heavily recruited by predominantly white schools.

``The most fundamental accusation of the athletes is that we put athletics ahead of academics, and that is totally contrary to our policy,``

said Pierre. ``Look at this campus. We have a stadium that holds 3,000 and a library that holds 4,000. In the last 15 years, we`ve probably won 25 games. This is not a football factory.``

The stadium actually expands to hold 6,600 for football games. The library seats 1,400, according to school figures.

That college coaches preach football over academics has been a familiar refrain in Texas. Few colleges, however, report athletes clamoring for more study time, and no college football team in recent memory has gone on strike against its coach.

``I was shocked,`` said Tammie Singletary, a junior. ``I mean, you don`t hear about football players getting upset because they can`t go to classes.`` Most of Prairie View`s football players receive some type of financial aid, as do 85 percent of the school`s 5,600 students.

Even though the head coach does not control financial aid disbursements, he can drop a student`s athletic scholarship at the end of the year, according to A.D. James, director of financial aid.

Players say that Catchings, who took over a winless team at midseason in 1987, instituted a drill dubbed ``the nutcracker`` in which two offensive lineman charged full speed at each other from 15 yards apart. It was modified last year after two players were hospitalized, one with a bruised spine, the other a concussion.

In another drill, players were forced to leap and crawl over a telephone pole resting on a bed of broken glass and rocks.

Early this year, the players suggested that Catchings ``do what a noble man would do`` and resign. They pursued their grievances through the university`s chain of command, Moore said, but no action was taken.

``It`s like a `win at all costs` climate here,`` said Richard Haynes, a 6-foot-6-inch, 300-pound offensive lineman. ``This is a small black university. A lot of players are not going to go pro. The only way they`re going to get someplace in this world is if they get a piece of paper, that degree.``